Xena Warrior Princess

Detailed Summary

The Furies try to entertain Ares when he visits their temple, but despite
their efforts, his only interest is in hearing their judgement of Xena.
He has laid a case before them that she has failed to avenge the death of
her father; when they decide that she is guilty, he pleads with them to
take the exceptional step of infliciting both of the possible punishments
of persecution and insanity on her.
Meanwhile Gabrielle is trying to get Xena to compete in a race, in the
hope that she can win and extract a promise from Xena. However, their
game gets interupted by a gang of thugs who are after Xena for a bounty
that has been placed on her head. During the fight, The Furies judgement
kicks in and Xena starts fighting in a rather unauthodox way. Once
the fight is over, Xena starts juggling her chakram and eating fruit from
the tip of her knife. When she starts calling Gabrielle Mavis, we start
to suspect something is wrong. At Gabrielle's suggestion, Xena puts the
pinch on one of the thugs and they discover that the bounty was placed on
her by a priest from the temple of the Furies.
Xena then mounts her horse with a backflip and facing backwards, and rides
off. When they reach the temple of the Furies, Xena and Gabrielle learn
the reason for the insanity and head off to visit Xena's mother to find out
the truth.

En route to Amphipolis, Xena and Gabrielle camp out for the night.
Gabrielle wakes in the middle of the night to discover that Xena is gone
although her clothes remain; Gabrielle finds her standing naked at the
edge of a town swearing curses and damnation at the town for their hideous
crimes. Gabrielle leads her away. The following morning Xena rushes off
and makes her way to her mother's inn. Once there she just about manages
to explain to her mother what is happening and her mother confesses that
she is the murderer of Xena's father.
Xena collapses into a silent stupor and is being nursed by her mother
when Gabrielle walks in; Cyrene explains to Gabrielle what happened and
tells her of another person who was faced with the same dilemma by the
Furies. Gabrielle rushes off to find this man in the hope that he can
show a way of resolving the empasse. When she gets there, Gabrielle
discovers that although he killed his mother as instructed, the Furies
did not free him from the insanity and he is living as a lunatic in
an asylum. In the meantime, Xena has realised for herself that doing
the Furies bidding is no way out, and has decided that is it she who
must die on the grounds that she is deeply dangerous to innocent people
in her insane state of mind. Xena makes her way to a clifftop where
she intends to jump, killing herself - Ares appears to her and tries
to pursuade her not to jump.
Xena refuses to complete the act without the certain knowledge that the
Furies will have seen that she has completed that which she is required to
do and extracts a promise from Ares that he will bring the Furies to an
agreed place to witness Xena's act of vengence.

Xena returns to her mother's inn and leads her mother to the temple of
the Furies, where Xena straps her to the altar and waits for Ares and
the Furies to arrive. Gabrielle arrives at the temple and tries to tell
Xena of the trick that the Furies will not free her from the insanity
even if she does carry out their bidding and kills her mother, but is
silenced by Ares.
As Xena is about to kill her mother, she asks the Furies why she is being
required to kill her father when he is very much alive. The Furies are
somewhat taken back by this and Xena proceeds to require Gabrielle to
relate the tales that Ares takes on the form of absent warriors and visits
their wives for sex. Cyrene then confirms that Xena was concieved when
her husband returned unexpectedly from battle. Xena then asks for the
opportunity to prove herself to be half-god by fighting Ares - if she can
hold her own and defeat the god of war in a fight she reasons, this will
prove that she is no ordinary mortal and infact has the blood of the god
in her. The Furies accept this and the challenge begins; in the end
Xena wins out and the Furies remove the curse and tell Ares that they will
report his misdemeanours back to Zeus and the other gods. Ares is annoyed
but impressed that Xena has beaten him again, and asks if she truely
believes he is her father. She answers that she doesn't care; all that is
important is that the Furies believe she is and that she has freed herself
from the curse.